The Prophecy Films

So I finally got around to watching The Prophecy films. I bought them in this nifty dvd which collected all three films in one disk, so I ended up watching them back to back. I know that these films have gone past their third installment, I believe they are currently on their fourth sequel, but I don’t even count the ones after part 3 because they don’t have Christopher Walken in them, they feel more like a cash in, a last desperate attempt to milk the franchise for all it’s worth. I just don’t have any interest in them. But if anyone out there thinks that Prophecy: Forsaken (2005) and Prophecy: Uprising (2005) are worth a damn, let me know, I just might give them a shot at some point. But for now, they don’t even register on my radar. This review will cover only the first three films. So it’s a three for one deal, enjoy!

The thing about these movies is that they started out with a decent theatrical release, which was the first film, the sequels after that all went straight to dvd which always raises a red flag for me because they make me think that if they went straight to dvd, then they weren’t considered good enough by the producers, at least not good enough to bother with a theatrical release. So maybe this is the reason why I had never bothered seeing these straight to dvd sequels that followed the original. But curiosity always gets the best of me and I found this dvd with all three so cheap that I went for it. I’m glad I did, the first three films are fairly decent on their own right.

The interesting thing about these first three Prophecy films is that they all had a decent cast. I mean, take a look at the first one where we have the always entertaining Christopher Walken as the human hating angel, Gabriel. You see on these series of films, some angels hate humans because they are jealous of them. They feel that God loves humans more then angels, so some angels have decided to completely annihilate the human race, just so they could be number one again. They want to make it like before, when God loved them best. In order to achieve this, Gabriel wants to find the soul of the most evil human on the planet, who just so happens to be a military leader for the U.S. army. Just watching Walken playing an angel is great, he has such fun with the character; who by the way gets funnier as the series progresses. He spews lines like “I’m an angel, I kill firstborns while their mamas watch!” These movies are that much enjoyable simple because Walken is in them. So anyways we also get Elias Koteas, the guy who always plays secondary characters in every single movie he’s been in except this one, where he   plays detective Thomas Daggett, a priest wannabe who every now and then  gets horrific visions from god. The whole thing makes you wonder why God would send someone such horrible images! But whatever, Daggett is investigating the appearance of dead angels, which keep popping up across the city. Along for the ride is Virginia Madsen who plays a grade school teacher and the always underused Eric Stoltz who plays the good angel that’s trying to stop Gabriel. But the avalanche of talent isn’t over my friends! The amazing cast continues with Amanda Plummer as a zombie/ghoul who helps Gabriel move around and Viggo Mortensen playing Satan himself! So we got an amazing cast rounding up this horror film! Was the film worth it?

Well yeah. The story is all about humans, it preaches on about how we are capable of a lot of good, but unfortunately, a lot of evil as well. The idea that an angel needs the soul of an evil human to help him destroy humanity itself says a lot about how the filmmakers see humanity. We are creatures capable of such violence, that our violent capabilities rival even that of God’s own angels! We are the experts on the subject; so much so that they need US to destroy humanity; as Lucifer himself puts it: “Humans -and how I love talking monkeys for this- know more about war and treachery of the spirit than any angel” The film unfolds in a very dark and eerie manner, with angels running around the city killing each other as lightning strikes the skies. Somehow American Indian folklore works its way into the film! Same as in many horror films, Indians always have the best connection with anything supernatural, which really is something of a cliché in horror films. There’s always an Indian burial ground, or an Indian spirit, or an Indian shaman to help out. The thing about these Prophecy movies is that they are always on the verge of some big apocalyptic event happening, but nothing ever does. The big war between angels and humans, or good angels vs. rebel angels never really consummates. But whatever, the in between was also fun.

These films are all filled with angels crouching on top of furniture or on top of buildings like birds; problem is they never really fly! I never got his about these movies, these guys are angels but they don’t seem to ever use their wings for flying. We do get to see a five second sequence of angels flying in the clouds, but we see it from afar, and briefly. And they re-use that same stock footage on a couple of these films, which I hated. I guess it had something to do with budgetary limitations, but we never really get to take a good look at the angels spreading their wings and flying. If an angel opens its wings, we only see the shadow of that, or someone’s reaction to it, but we never see the freaking angels taking flight. They do skip around a lot and jump around a lot though. I found it funnyt that since angels don’t know how to handle human machinery, they have to resort to having humans doing things for them like driving them around town or showing them how to use a computer or a walkie talkie. Why don’t they just fly where they need to go instead of using a car?

So, in comes Prophecy II (1998) which was the most difficult to watch of these three films. I found it extremely boring, and disappointing for various reasons. Number one, I didn’t like the fact that the film resorted to using so much stock footage from the first film. To me this is a lame ass, lazy move from any filmmaker. You are showing us the same images from the first film! Don’t do this! We as an audience feel cheated as hell! Still, the director felt the need to show us the same sequence of angels flying far up in the sky, and these flashbacks of angels fighting that we already saw on the first film. Laaazy! On this second chapter of the Prophecy series Jennifer Beals has a one night stand with an angel. The angel is looking for the right girl to father his child. You see, the angels want to conceive a half breed, a half human, half angel child. This half breed is the one destined to stop the rebel angels from committing genocide. So Jennifer Beals character functions as a “Virgin Mary” of sorts on this film.

Even Satan doesnt want this guy in hell! 

Now here's where things dont stick to bible lore: in the bible the sons of angels are called ‘The Nephilim’. According to the bible angels actually looked down the from heavens at the eartlhy women and foudn them incredibly hot. Cant say I blame them, I'm merely a human and I find them irresistible. Yet, this idea of angels having sexual desires makes no sense because according to the bible, angels are supposed to be asexual! So anyhows, they found earth girls hot and materialized so they could get a taste of female flesh! So any way, they ended up having babies, and these sons of angels ended up being evil giants who terrorized the land. That’s right my friends, according to the bible giants once walked the earth! And they were evil! Yet on this movie the Nephilim is supposed to be some sort of savior! Humanities last hope for survival. See what I mean? No sense whatsoever. On top of this, the angel that screws Jessica Beals doesn’t even care for her, he just uses her! The bastard! Point is that this angel ends up committing what the bible refers to as fornication, which is just a big word for having sex before getting married. According to the bible, this is one of the biggest sins you could commit against god! But this angel doesnt care, he sins in order to defeat the bad angels? And these are supposed to be the good guys! So anyhow, this second chapter in the series has a cool cast, again Christopher Walken returns as Gabriel, we get Jennifer Beals as Rosario, we get Eric Roberts and Danzig as angels. And as an added bonus Brittany Murphy played the ghoul who does Gabriel’s beading!  But in spite of this film having a great cast, this second chapter in the series feels like an in-between chapter in a much larger story. It feels like they were setting everything up for something bigger. And that’s exactly what they were doing with this second film. The third film was far more entertaining and fulfilling. It wanted to end the series with a big bang! I think it achieved it.

Brittany Murphy in one of her earliest roles

The Prophecy 3: The Ascent (2000) surprised the hell out of me. Having seen the past two films and finding them only mildly entertaining, I went in to this third chapter with very low expectations, yet I’m happy to inform that I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, it’s the one that I enjoyed the most out of all three! One thing I like about these first three films is that they have continuity to them. Characters return and reappear; problem is that sometimes it’s difficult to realize this because they keep changing actors. In spite of this, you do get a sense of continuity, and Walken’s Gabriel is the one character that holds all three films together. One element I enjoyed about this one is that Gabriel is human on this one, and so he is kind of getting used to being human. He likes living on earth, he’s dropped the short black hair and trench coat for long white hair and living like a bum on the streets. On this film he is slowly learning to actually like humans. With this film they pulled a Terminator 2 (1992) on us and went and made the villain a good guy this time around. Walken is no longer hell bent on destroying humanity, he’s lightened up. One hilarious scene has him just enjoying a drive down the dessert on this beat up old car trying to play a trumpet as he drives, cause you know, according to the bible, angels play trumpets in heaven all the time, which kind of makes you think about who gives angels music classes, and who makes these holy musical instruments? 

But who cares seeing Christopher Walken playing a trumpet as he drives is hilarious right?! In Gabriel’s place we now have a villain called Pyriel who is still very much interested in destroying all humans and proclaiming himself the “next god”. The Nephilim Danyael (who was introduced in the second film) is now all grown up and has lost all faith in God. In fact he runs a church that preaches against god! I thought this was so interesting! But across the film he learns to accept his true destiny which is going up against the Pyriel, the leader of the rebel angels.

This third film distinguishes itself for various reasons, first, it was directed by one Patrick Lussier. Now this is a director whom you can either love or hate, depending on how much cheese you can take. Lussier is the guy behind Drive Angry (2011), a film I enjoyed hating. He also made My Bloody Valentine (2009) and is currently hard at work putting the finishing touches on Halloween III (2012). He’s also the guy behind all those Dracula 2000 movies. All of these films are high in octane and cheese, unapologetic about their b-movie nature. I guess this is the reason why this Prophecy film was so fun to watch. The previous two films feel dreary and boring when compared to this one which is filled with chase sequences and matrix-style fighting. Also, it has this awesome showdown during its last sequences between two angels that is the most exciting thing in the whole trilogy. The film even has a happy ending to it! 

Another thing that made this one cool: it has Brad Dourif playing a gun totting religious fanatic who walks around with the bible in one hand and a gun to shoot any infidels on the other! This is yet another crazy character to add to Brad Dourif long list of freaky characters he's portrayed on film.Well, I guess I’ve run out of things to say about these movies. Not a bad trilogy of films, the third film offers up a nice wrap up to the trilogy and has finality to it. At least this series isn’t as bad as the Children of the Corn movies which by the way I will comment on soon. But these Prophecy films prove one thing to me once again: God hates to appear in horror films,  while Satan loves them. For proof of that check out one of my most popular blog posts: God and Satan inFilms. And another thing, if you freeze frame the last image in Prophecy II, just before the ending credits you can see a face forming in the clouds, while thunder and lightning crackle…don’t know if that qualifies as an appearance by God or not, what do you guys think?

Rating: The Prophecy (1995)  3 out of 5

Rating: The Prophecy II (1998) 2 out of 5

Rating:  The Prophecy 3: The Ascent (2000) 3 1/2 out of 5 

  

Skinwalkers (2006)

Title: Skinwalkers (2006)

Director: James Isaac

Cast: Elias Koteas, Rhona Mitra, Jason Behr, Matthew Knight

Review:

There's a sub-genre in the world of horror films, where a film is scary, but not too scary, horrifying, but not too frightning. I'm talking about the horror film aimed at kids; at the pre-teen audience. These movies feel as if hollywood was saying, you aint ready for full on horror, but you can start by watching this! I’m talking about films like Fred Dekker’s Monster Squad (1987) or Tibor Takac's The Gate (1987), the movie where these kids open a gate to hell in their own backyard. These are movies in which the main character is usually a 12 year old kid, filled with insecurities and a strong sense of awe. Skinwalkers, the werewolf film I will be reviewing today, felt a bit like that, like a genre flick made for kids.

Skinwalkers is the story of a 12 year old boy named Timothy Talbot. Timothy is a very special boy, he is a half breed between humans and werewolves. He also holds the cure for lycanthropy. A prophecy says that at the stroke of midnight on his 13th birthday, “something” is going to happen that can change the fate of all werewolves. Now, some werewolves are happy about this because they see their condition as a curse. They want nothing more then for the prophecy to be fulfilled, so they can be cured. But there is another group of werewolves that is proud of being werewolves and want nothing to do with this cure. They love being werewolves and want to remain that way. It’s this group of zealous werewolves that want to kill Timothy and stop the prophecy from coming true. Will they achieve their goal?

"Leave the granny alone...shes mine!"

Sounds cheesy don’t it? Well, it is. The problem for me with this movie was that the storyline was way to predictable, I mean, we’ve seen this story unfold a thousand times before. Once again we get another film dealing with “The Chosen One” that is going to fulfill the prophecy and destroy the evil. Come on, that has been done to death! So as the story unfolds in Skinwalkers, you feel like “oh no, here we go again”, which isn’t a good thing in my book. Still, you know what they say: “it’s not what you say, but how you say it that matters” and unfortunately the makers of Skinwalkers chose to tell their story in the most predictable way possible. With the most god awful unnatural dialog you have ever heard in your life. This was one thing I absolutely hated about this movie. How robotic the dialog sounded. The actors sounded as if they were reading everything right of the script, with no desire to make it sound believable. In my opinion this is the directors fault, for not even trying to pull a convincing performance from his actors. The director by the way is Jim Isaacs, the guy responsible for directing Jason X (2001) and most recently the killer pig movie Pig Hunt (2010). Aside from having robotic dialog, the storyline is filled with these gaping plot holes. For example, where does this prophecy come from in the first place? What is its origin? What prophet is getting all this info? Why does the moon suddenly turn red? I know it has to do with the prophecy of the “blood moon” but my question is why does it happen? So many questions arise with this movie…yet the script didn’t care to answer them.

The film does have a couple of good things going for it though. First of which is the look of the werewolves. This is something that the film got absolutely right. Each werewolf has their own distinctive look, so you can tell them apart when you see them. Even the female werewolves look completely different, sexier. Love that about this movie and it’s all thanks to the involvement of Stan Winston Studios in the make up department. Stan Winston's team are no strangers to werewolf films, having done the wolfman in The Monster Squad.   The werewolf simply look very fierce, their jaws and fangs looking really menacing! These are some of the best werewolves I’ve seen on any werewolf movie, sadly they are on this “bad” movie. Though, I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is the worst werewolf movie I have ever seen. That would be Wes Craven’s Cursed (2005), and Skinwalkers is not nearly as bad as that one.

Skinwalkers focuses on delivering action as well. There is this big action sequence somewhere around the middle of the film where the evil werewolves finally arrive at the town where all the good werewolves reside in. This town is really weird because it’s filled with empty streets, people don’t seem to inhabit it at all. So the bad werewolves come walking into town in slow motion, loading their guns and nobody gives a damn. Where is the freaking police force in this town? Apparently it’s non existent! There is this huge shoot out between good werewolves and bad werewolves where everyone pulls out their guns and its non stop blowing shit up time! Even grandma werewolf pulls out her .44 magnums and starts blowing away bad werewolves! That scene by the way, with werewolf grandma blowing away the good guys is probably the most memorable sequence in the whole film. Haven’t seen a review that doesn’t mention that scene yet, including the one I’m typing right now. So suddenly, this movie feels like one of those 80’s action flicks where they blow shit up real good. Funny part about the whole shoot out is that nobody seems to get hit! Hundreds of bullets whizzing by and not one of them hits anybody! The shoot out is kind of comical in that way, I guess its also appropriate in a PG-13 film, cause the amount of blood they can show in a PG-13 film is minimal.

Actually, to be honest, this whole film felt like a film from the 80’s for some reason. You know how sometimes you watch a film from the 80’s and suddenly you realize that back in the day movies were kind of crazier? How they didn’t give a damn if their story or premise was extremely cheesy or unbelievable as hell? Where a movie simply didn’t give a damn about being silly? That’s how this movie felt. Specially when it came to its whole prophecy angle, and the whole thing about “the moon turning red, then we will all know that the time of the prophecies fulfillment is near…” that type of thing. But also, with scenes like the big shoot out. I mean, these guys are blowing each other away in broad daylight right smack in the middle of the town and there are no cops to be seen anywhere!

The film also reminded me of something out of the 80’s because it has that whole vibe of having a kid going through the whole adventure right next to his mom all the time, or right next to a mother figure. You guys ever see Tobe Hooper’s Invaders from Mars (1986) where the kid goes through out the whole movie with his teacher right next to him taking the role of the protective mother? That’s the kind of movie Skinwalkers is, Timothy goes through out the whole film with his mom protecting him every step of the way, which makes perfect sense in a movie aimed at 12 year olds. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t stick to its child like tone all the time. The film is aimed at kids, but it has this kind of graphic sex sequence squeezed in the middle of the film that feels totally out of place. This sex scene was actually pretty similar to the one in The Howling (1981), where these two people are making out in the middle of the forest, and as they make out, they start to turn into werewolves. In a movie like The Howling, that scene fits perfectly well, but not on a PG-13 movie for kids like Skinwalkers. This uneven tone of the film is probably what made it difficult for studios to market it. Is it a movie for 12 year olds, or is it a movie for adults? Usually that kind of uncertainty in the marketing of a film spells certain death at the box office.

A lot of people seem to think that this is a terrible movie; I say it does have some bad things going for it, but in all honesty, if I was a 12 year old kid watching this movie I would probably have loved it. It has similarities with films like Werewolves on Wheels (1971) because all the evil werewolves ride motorcycles and with films like The Lost Boys (1988) because it deals with the battle between monsters that want to stop being monsters and the monsters that wave their monster flag proudly. This isn’t the worst werewolf movie ever made, and it isn’t the best either. My advice is, watch this one with a 12 year old and watch them love it. You might laugh at the dialog, but you’ll make that 12 year old kid inside of you happy.

Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5

Make up tests for Skinwalkers

Shutter Island (2010)

Title: Shutter Island (2010)

Director: Martin Scorcese

Writer: Laeta Kalogridis, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Elias Koteas, Jackie Earle Haley, Emily Mortimer

Review:

Martin Scorcese is one of those directors who’s name is a household word. Scorcese is as much a star of his movies as his actors are. And this is not without merit for Scorcese is responsible for some of the best films ever made, including some of those fantastic films that were made during the 70s that still, to this day influence modern filmmakers. Films like Taxi Driver and Mean Streets. Both awesome films on their own right; both masterpieces. And both are only a small representation of what this great American filmmaker is capable of producing. His body of work is certainly an impressive one. And one that has never shown signs of diminishing in terms of quality of storytelling and filmmaking ability. In other words, Scorcese is a master. There’s no denying that. So, how did Shutter Island, his latest film, fare?

Scorcese, directing the hell out of Kingsley, DiCaprio and Ruffalo

Shutter Island is the story of one Teddy Daniels, federal marshal. He is visiting the incredibly mysterious Shutter Island, and island that is home to one of the most dangerous psychiatric wards in the world. A ward that houses the most criminally insane individuals on the planet, the ones that are deemed too dangerous to live in society. The ones that have committed the most heinous crimes. Teddy arrives to investigate the disappearance of one of the inmates. I mean, patients of the ward. It seems like she simply vanished from her cell! How did she disappear from her cell without a trace? How did she achieve this when her room was locked and her windows were barred up? Why did she leave without any shoes on? Where is she? Will she survive the fierce storm that’s forming outside? Will Teddy uncover the truth behind this ever evolving mystery?

And that’s a key word on this movie: mystery. It’s ever present, from the first frame of the film to the last. The whole film is drenched in atmosphere, like one of those old school horror movies where the storm never lets up. I personally love movies that do this because I really hate it when horror movies loose that spooky feeling. It makes you kind of wish they stretched it out for longer. But not with Shutter Island, with Shutter Island you get a constant spooky vibe, constant suspense, constant mystery, a constant ominous feeling. The psycho ward feels like one of those castles from the old horror movies, a castle at the end of the cliff. I tell you, that spooky feeling never lets up! The deeper the movie goes, the darker the mystery, the darker the film. The stronger the storm! If you love spooky old school horror movies, where the wind is howling all the time, and the storm looks like it’s never going to end, then Shutter Island is for you.

Thematically speaking though, I loved what this movie was trying to say. Filmmaking is a mirror of our society, which is an aspect of filmmaking that I love. I think its so interesting how we can communicate so much through films. I sometimes feel artists and filmmakers communicate with society in code, through their films. Saying important things that sometimes people don’t like to talk about, addressing themes and issues that need to be addressed and discussed. But sometimes filmmakers don’t like to be so obvious with what they are saying, so they’ll embellish their tales with complications, and drama. But at the core, you sometimes have to wonder while watching a film: what’s this filmmaker trying to communicate? What is he trying to say? Shutter Island is one of these movies. It’s not your typical spooky psychological thriller. Though it succeeds marvelously at being one, this movie is trying to communicate so much more then just a spooky scare.

At heart, Shutter Island is similar to Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down (1993). If you remember correctly, Schumacher’s Falling Down was about a guy (Michael Douglas in one of his finest roles ever) who is driven mad by the way things are set in society. He can’t take it anymore so he bolts and goes ballistic, lashing out against society. Shutter Island has that subversive vibe going for it. It criticizes the government for performing experiments on people, hideous experiments to see what makes people tick. This is one of those “us vs. them” movies, where every one acts just a little weird. Kind of like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Wicker Man (1973). The kind of film where everyone is in on something, except our protagonist. You get the vibe from the very beginning that something is a little off on Shutter Island, and that everyone is acting just a little strange. Its one of those movies where “they” want to control and dominate you, and if you don’t play along, then you are going against the grain, and that cant be good for you. You have to either comply, play along, or be eradicated.

Mario Bava would be proud

In many ways, this film is kind of like a cautionary tale for people with a rebellious spirit, same as Falling Down was. Its trying to say, something might be going wrong, the government might be corrupt, and everything society holds true and certain is a lie, but you still gotta play ball or you are going down. But again, this is all embellished in the film. Which is probably why most people aren’t going to get it. This was probably the reason why after the film was over I heard some people saying the movie was crap. That’s the problem with today’s film going audience, they’ll go in droves to mindless crap like Transformers 2 (2009), but they’ll think that Shutter Island is a boring movie that has too many talky scenes. It doesn’t have that huge splash of an ending, with a lot of special effects.

And yeah, it’s true, this is a very cerebral film. It’s not a film about special effects, or grizzly deaths, or car explosions. This is a movie with a brain, with something to say. Proof of this films cerebral introspective nature is the films many nightmare/flashback sequences, which by the way I absolutley loved! Scorcese really went wild with the dreamsequences on this film, it gave the whole movie a very hallucinatory vibe that I really dug. And on top of that Shutter Island  has an excellent cast, and it was made by one of the most legendary filmmakers in the industry. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, Martin Scorcese has been on a roll and has never stopped ever since he started making movies. He has not given up like many directors have at his age. He continues making excellent films, with passion, drama and intrigue. That’s one thing this movie has a lot of, intrigue. By the way, the feeling of mystery in this movie is only augmented by the films amazing musical score. Martin Scorcese is a film director that has not forgotten the importance of music in a film! I thank the movie gods for that, especially in a movie of this kind. The music Scorcese chose for this film (composed of famous classical music tracks) kind of guided us through the roller coaster ride of emotions that both images and music conjure up. It’s as if the music was telling us how we should feel. I love that kind of score on a film! Very grand. Very classy. Just as grand and just as classy as the movie itself.

Rating: 5 out of 5